Este ensayo sostiene que uno de los desafíos más apremiantes que debe enfrentar una psicología de inspiración peripatética es el de conservar la relevancia causal del alma en los tres órdenes del cambio físico (traslación, alteración y crecimiento), sin hacer de ella un “motor” interno que desplace al organismo por hallarse en continuidad con él. En caso de no sortear con éxito este escollo, tal psicología no podrá afirmar que el alma sea un ítem inextenso e impasible, sino (a lo (...) sumo) un cuerpo sutil que desplaza a otro más grosero. Mittelmann propone una lectura conjunta de los tratados de Alejandro y Aristóteles acerca del alma, con el fin de presentar la estrategia de Alejandro como un modo exitoso de hacer frente a esa dificultad patente. Según Mittelmann, Alejandro hallaría en los “estados disposicionales” de Aristóteles el paradigma apropiado para concebir la eficacia causal de las formas. Aquellos podrían oficiar de motores inmóviles en la medida en que reúnen una doble condición, que ni las formas platónicas ni los cuerpos sutiles pueden satisfacer: por una parte, su carácter incorpóreo no los convierte en substancias (separadas); por otra, su carácter inseparable no los convierte en cuerpos que desplacen a otros cuerpos por hallarse en contacto con ellos. (shrink)

I lay out and examine two sharply conflicting interpretations of Aristotle's claims about nous in the De Anima (DA). On the human separability approach, Aristotle is taken to have identified reasons for thinking that the intellect can, in some way, exist on its own. On the naturalist approach, the soul, including intellectual soul, is inseparable from the body of which it is the form. I discuss how proponents of each approach deal with the key texts from the DA, focusing on (...) four of the most important and interesting topics in this area. Two of these topics concern the activity of understanding (noêsis): first, what does Aristotle mean when he claims that the intellect cannot have a bodily organ and, secondly, what role does Aristotle think phantasmata (“images” or “representations”) play in understanding something? Two of the topics concern DA 3.5, one of the most difficult passages in Aristotle's corpus: first, what is the nature and role of the productive intellect (nous poiêtikos) introduced there and, secondly, what are this chapter's implications for the question of whether the intellect or intellectual soul can exist apart from the body? I conclude by identifying areas where further research is necessary. (shrink)

Aristotle’s Naïve Somatism is a re-interpretation of Aristotle’s cognitive psychology in light of certain presuppositions he holds about the living animal body. The living animal body is presumed to be sensitive, and Aristotle grounds his account of cognition in a rudimentary proprioceptive awareness one has of her body. With that presupposed metaphysics under our belts, we are in a position to see that Aristotle in de Anima (cognition chapters at least) has a di erent explanatory aim in view than that (...) which the literature generally imputes to him. He is not explicating what we would call the “mental”—the private, inner realm which some take to be of a di erent kind than the physical—as most take him to be. His explanandum is content acquisition; the explanans is showing how the body becomes like various aspects of objects. Although he famously describes the mind (nous) as unmixed with the body, he is guided by functional constrains—nous cannot be limited or qualified if it is to potentially think all things. Thus, his inquiry into cognition is philosophically limited from a contemporary perspective. Aristotle is not doing philosophy of mind, for he doesn’t seem to find the “mental” philosophically perplexing. (shrink)